RE: Thinking a little about community
The problem is that the highly staked are de facto leaders, and Steemit Inc. is highly staked. That doesn't even take into account the precedent of their role as midwife for the project.
As I see it you need to lay less blame at the feet of the users. While it's always true that we each can only do what we can do (a blessing and a curse) and that complaining is at the very least unattractive, Steemit Inc. has tried to have it both ways. Decentralization with shepherding; running off the wealth of the platform, but reliant on outmoded practices; lack of investment in key infrastructure, but putting too much on their plate.
Individual responsibility only gets you so far when you are subject to the tides made by objects several magnitudes larger that you or the little groups we make. I argue for a little more of that perspective in you analysis here.
This definitely is an issue with the process of decentralization but at some point needs to be broached.
There is no real blame here but understanding the role we find/choose ourselves to be in goes a long way to working out what steps we have ahead of us.
This is what needs to get worked out doesn't it? Witnesses, invested, developers, contributors, whoever it happens to be have to work out a way to continue the blockchain independent of Steemit Inc. It could be that it requires another version of what was or something new altogether but, that is going to have to be developed and, Steemit Inc isn't likely at this point to take the lead or at least, take it forever.
You said it. As I said elsewhere, witnesses have had a chronic lake of imagination. There is a cozy cohort of controlling witnesses who need to challenge bad ideas a little better, and those outside that circle need to follow their guts instead of just going on with things because they think they can't make a difference. It's the kind of very silly voting we see in politics where people vote for those they think will win. I find that approach spineless.
Still, this is a stakeholders platform. If Steemit Inc. drop out of development you can be sure they're still going to exert massive pressure in witness votes, them and their remaining employees / alts / allies / sycophants.
As you said, it's a process. Best we can do is to be a part of that. We can't control it, and that's the point.